Chapter 2 - Two Ambulances
"Claire? Claire!"
A paramedic pushed Daniel aside just as the second ambulance turned into the church drive. One crew knelt around Claire, checking her airway and preparing to lift her onto a stretcher. The other assessed Mallory, who was conscious and furious, clutching her injured shoulder.
"He attacked me," Mallory kept saying. "There are fifty witnesses."
"I did," Daniel answered. He could barely recognize his own voice. "And she threw the first pot at my wife and kid. Don't leave either part out."
Detective Elena Reyes arrived while Emma sat on the church steps wrapped in a stranger's cardigan. The detective's eyes moved from the shattered planters to the little girl's dirt-streaked white jacket.
"Where were you standing?" Reyes asked gently.
Emma pointed. "Mommy moved in front of me. Aunt Mallory was looking at Mommy's necklace."
Reyes crouched. "Did anyone tell you what to say?"
Emma shook her head. "Aunt Mallory yelled that Mommy stole Grandma's cross. But Grandma gave it to her. I was there."
Daniel looked toward his wife. He had noticed the cross that morning. Helen had worn it for almost forty years. Three days before dying, she had taken it from her own neck and placed it in Claire's palm.
"Keep it safe," she'd said. "Promise me."
At the hospital, a nurse led Daniel into a small room with terrible fluorescent lights. "Your wife has a serious head injury," the emergency physician told him. "We're getting imaging now. There may be bleeding inside her skull."
"Will she wake up?"
"We're doing everything we can."
Daniel's phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number: YOU SHOULD HAVE LET THE FUNERAL END.
He showed Reyes when she arrived twenty minutes later. She photographed the screen instead of offering false comfort.
"Who else knew about the cross?" she asked.
"My sister. Maybe the whole family."
"Then why would someone threaten you over a necklace?"
May you like
Before he could answer, the doctor returned. Her expression had changed.
"Mr. Bennett," she said, "we need your permission to operate. Now."
